My first blog post :

George Orwell's "1984" was first published in 1949. At the time, TV was in its infancy - broadcasting in color was still years away. Most homes did not have TV's. There was, of course, no Internet, mass media was limited to newspapers and big government was not involved in day-to-day living. And truth had more traction. Orwell's prescient fictional account is thought provoking...

A few excerpts from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "1984":

The social class system of Oceania is threefold:

• (I) the upper-class Inner Party, the elite ruling minority, who make up 2% of the population.
• (II) the middle-class Outer Party, who make up 13% of the population.

• (III) the lower-class Proles (from proletariat), who make up 85% of the population and represent the uneducated working class.

Ministry of Plenty (Newspeak: Miniplenty)

The Ministry of Plenty rations and controls food, goods, and domestic production; every fiscal quarter, the Miniplenty publishes false claims of having raised the standard of living, when it has, in fact, reduced rations, availability, and production. The Minitrue substantiates the Miniplenty claims by revising historical records to report numbers supporting the current, "increased rations".

Ministry of Truth (Newspeak: Minitrue)

The Ministry of Truth controls information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts. Winston Smith works in the Minitrue RecDep (Records Department), "rectifying" historical records to concord with Big Brother's current pronouncements, thus everything the Party says is true.

Ministry of Love (Newspeak: Miniluv)

The Ministry of Love identifies, monitors, arrests, and converts real and imagined dissidents. In Winston's experience, the dissident is beaten and tortured, then, when near-broken, is sent to Room 101 to face "the worst thing in the world" — until love for Big Brother and the Party replaces dissension.

Doublethink is the act of ordinary people simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy and neutrality. Somewhat related but almost the opposite is cognitive dissonance, where contradictory beliefs cause conflict in one's mind. Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance — thus the person is completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction.

George Orwell coined the word doublethink in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949); doublethink is part of newspeak. In the novel, its origin within the typical citizen is unclear; while it could be partly a product of Big Brother's formal brainwashing programs, the novel explicitly shows people learning Doublethink and newspeak due to peer pressure and a desire to "fit in", or gain status within the Party — to be seen as a loyal Party Member. In the novel, while to even recognize, much less mention any contradiction within the context of the Party line was akin to blasphemy and subject to possible disciplinary action. More certain was the instant social disapproval of fellow Party Members.

My comment: So here we are in 2013 ... are we moving toward 1984 or are we moving away from it? What do you think?